High-tension battle brewing

Some Pennsylvania politicians and Allentown energy company PPL Corp. have found themselves on opposing sides of a Washington, D.C., imbroglio over high-tension power lines.

At issue is a controversial 2005 federal law that shifted final say over construction of transmission lines from state officials to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission -- an agency critics say is under the sway of energy companies. The stakes are high because such lines often require condemnation of private property.

The law "has the potential to disrupt the fundamental balance of power between local, state and federal governments in land use issues," reads a letter that House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, sent to the U.S. Senate this week.

The letter, co-signed by 38 of DeWeese's Democratic House colleagues, endorses the efforts of Pennsylvania's U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey to open an investigation into the Bush administration's implementation of the 2005 law. In October, the administration used it to designate a swath of the mid-Atlantic region, including 52 of 67 Pennsylvania counties, a FERC-controlled "national interest electric transmission corridor."

That decision, the DeWeese letter charges, "favors the economic interests of energy companies over that of landowners" and "pre-empts local and state governments' fundamental and traditional power to decide land use policies."

PPL, which has already begun siting one leg of the transmission corridor, is spending record amounts of money to make sure its point of view is also heard in Washington.

The Allentown energy company spent $1.3 million to lobby the federal government last year, or 8 percent more than 2006, according to a disclosure form posted online by the Senate's public records office earlier this month.

"Our company has grown, and we're involved in a lot of issues," PPL spokesman Paul Wirth said Friday. "It's only natural that our lobbying would grow as well."

The line PPL is working on will start at PPL Corp.'s Susquehanna nuclear power plant, about 75 miles northwest of the Lehigh Valley in Salem Township, Luzerne County. It will end at the Roseland substation near Newark, N.J.

PPL describes the project, which would cut a 100-mile-long, 200-foot-wide swath through the rolling hills of northeast Pennsylvania, as a necessity. If the grid isn't upgraded, it could fail, causing blackouts, according to the company.

Wirth said a "very small percentage" of PPL's lobbying efforts have been devoted to the transmission corridor. Nuclear energy, by comparison, was a much bigger focus.

PPL, which has tentative plans to build a third Susquehanna reactor at the starting point of its transmission line, is trying to persuade Congress to approve government-backed loans for nuclear power-plant construction.

Lawmakers who signed the DeWeese letter included Reps. Keith McCall of Carbon County, Mike Carroll of Luzerne County and John Siptroth of Monroe County.

Rather than directly challenge the letter's points, Wirth said PPL believes it can site the new transmission line using the state process, which includes extensive public hearings, that it has used in the past

"We have no plans right now to use that [federal] process, and only would as an absolute last resort," he said. "We're confident that the state process will work as it always had."

CORRECTION: PPL Corp. spent $1.3 million to lobby the federal government last year. The amount was incorrect in a headline Saturday.